Associated Incidents
It was a story destined to become a miniseries, one of those that can be devoured in a weekend. When French TV aired the story of Anne, a 53-year-old interior designer who divorced her husband and donated €800,000 to a fake Brad Pitt who claimed to be sick with cancer and broke due to his divorce from Angelina Jolie, many people online reacted by harassing her for being so naive. Photos she had received of the alleged Brad Pitt lying in a hospital bed surrounded by surgical instruments were made public, which investigators now believe is the product of criminal activity by three Nigerians.
In reality, the case was highlighting something that has been happening a lot lately: the use of artificial intelligence to falsify photos and videos in an attempt to extract profit from the poor victims who fall into their trap.
Within a few weeks, in addition to Pitt's representative urging people to beware of Deep Fakes manipulating his image, TF1 removed the Sept à Huit program where Anne had told her story from all its platforms. According to the newspaper Le Figaro**, the online hostility the victim received led to her being hospitalized with severe depression.**
Even a football club, Toulouse FC, posted fake photos of the actor wearing the club's shirt on its X account, telling her he was going to watch a match and asking if she didn't want to come too.
Scarlett Johansson Demands Government Intervention
In February,** fake images of other Hollywood actors were used in the United States for a campaign against Kanye West's anti-Semitism**. The rapper had placed an ad during the televised broadcast of the popular Super Bowl promoting his merchandise, with a link that led only to T-shirts with swastikas.
Jewish actors Scarlett Johansson, Ben Stiller, Mila Kunis, David Schwimmer, her co-star in* Friends* Lisa Kudrow and Adam Sandler, appeared days later in an ad posing with T-shirts with a Star of David that inside had a hand with the middle finger making the classic gesture and the rapper's name. A dramatic effect that turned out to be false.
Alerted by her family and friends, Johansson was the first to comment on the ad using AI-generated images. The actress had already sued the CEO of OpenAI for using a voice very similar to hers for a digital assistant after she refused to do so, imitating her role in the film Her.
Scarlett immediately sent a statement of principles to the media.
"Unfortunately, I have been a very public victim of Artificial Intelligence, but it is something that concerns us all. I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or any other hate speech. I also believe that hate speech multiplied by AI is a much greater threat. We must denounce the misuse of AI or we risk losing our grip on reality... It is terrifying that our government seems paralyzed when it comes to legislating to protect its citizens."
Johnny Depp, Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves and the signatures continue
Sandra Bullock had to come out and deny that she was asking for money in a fake video that her sister detected on Facebook. Johnny Depp has just reported on Instagram that people are creating accounts on the networks with his name to scam his fans. He clarifies that @Johnny Depp is his only account on Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok and that he does not have accounts on X/Twitter, Snapchat or Discord. "Today, AI can create the illusion of my face and voice. Scammers can pretend to be me, but they should know that I would never ask for money or personal information."
Keanu Reeves says that back in the '90s, he panicked about the misappropriation of his image when he saw a scene he had filmed in which tears had been added. Like Scarlett Johansson, faced with the rise of these fakes, or Deep Fakes, he asks that people be more than cautious.